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June 4, 2014

CrossFit Perception

“We are what we believe we are.” ~ C.S. Lewis

I had dinner with a few friends the other night and came to the realization that the perception of me is way different from how I perceive myself. I was left wondering if that is good or bad. First of all, I have great friends and their opinions mean a lot to me. All but one I met at the box but our friendship extends way past just talking about CrossFit. We also talk about sports, strippers, and sometimes female athletes we wish were strippers. Regardless, it’s nice to have good friends that you can hang with.

Back to the story. So we are at dinner and one of the guys says to me how slim I look. It caught me off guard because I think this is the heaviest I have been in a while. I am not really sure because I don’t weigh myself. I do however obsess in front of the mirror like a 16 year old girl and am currently wearing my “fat jeans”. All of that doesn’t concern me yet but if I start making myself throw up and watch the Twilight saga I’ll let you know…

Regardless, I told him he was crazy and then he needled me a bit for how much I run, how “clean” I eat and how low my body fat is. That’s when the whole perception thing kicked in. Is that how I am perceived? An ultra-thin running Paleo freak? I think this was in my mind because I was chatting (texting) with a friend who is a very good CrossFitter. (Good enough to go to Carson this year in her age group although she acts like that is no big deal.) We were chatting about this blog and how goofy it is and she mentioned that she likes it because it’s funny and that I don’t take myself seriously. She then says “I am so sick of self righteous Paleo eating chicks writing about their CrossFit lives and how superior they are.” She also mentioned some violent things she would like to do to them but for the sake of any future assault trials I’ll be called to testify at, we will leave it at that. Suffice to say if one of the Masters events is “Throat punching for time” she will be a lock for the podium…

Anyhoo ~ As I sit here putting it all together, I think this is why some people hate CrossFit or simply think we are crazy. They don’t see us in our most vulnerable. This buddy of mine who thinks I’m a clean eater missed my Papa John’s orgy I had on Sunday night. He misses the days that I sleep in (like today) or the fact that I look in the mirror every single morning hoping to see some progress from my training and am usually disappointed in what I see. He misses the half-assed runs that happen after drinking the night before. All he sees are the PR’s that I post because I don’t post WODs that say “DNF” or “I finished last today”. Maybe I should start doing that. Maybe we should all start doing that more often. I wonder if more people would try CrossFit if they knew we failed more than we succeeded. We are all so caught up trying to be Rich or Julie that we have forgotten that it is ok to simply be average as long as we are trying. So let me be the first to say it. I am average and you probably are too.